


we might've took the long way

by xslytherclawx



Category: Original Work
Genre: Childhood Friends, Chocolate Box Exchange, Lawyers, M/M, friends to strangers to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28666329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xslytherclawx/pseuds/xslytherclawx
Summary: In all the ways that matter, Colin hasn't changed at all. That's the most jarring part of it.
Relationships: Male Defense Attorney/Male Prosecutor Who Was His Childhood Friend, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 14
Kudos: 27
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6, xslytherclawx’s events collection





	we might've took the long way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Enisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enisy/gifts).



> a million thanks to Ben for assisting and cheering me on!

“So,” Zackary says as evenly as possible.

“So,” Colin counters.

He’s always been like this. Zackary feels a stirring of emotion – fondness tinged with annoyance. God, he hasn’t changed at all, has he?

Twenty years, and he’s still exactly the same.

More expensive haircut, though.

“I didn’t know you’d moved back,” Zackary finally says. He doesn’t want to sound like he’s been keeping track. He hasn’t.

“I didn’t know you worked at Legrand and Barnes.”

“Three years now,” Zackary says. He wishes Colin would volunteer something about himself, but if this is how it has to be… 

Colin doesn’t say anything in response. He only sips at his coffee. Asshole.

Well, two can play at that game. Zackary sits in stony silence and drinks his tea. It’s a good blend. Not great, but good. He wanted to go to a better café down the road, but Colin insisted, and – well, maybe the coffee’s better.

“People don’t actually call you  _ Zackary, _ do they?” Colin asks after a few minutes.

“It  _ is _ my name.”

“Plenty of people – lawyers included – use nicknames.” Colin doesn’t say it outright, but Zackary can hear the suggestion:  _ you used to. _

He’s changed. They both have, as eerily similar as Colin may seem right now.

Zackary shrugs. “Decided to start using my full name in undergrad. I liked it better.”

Colin only hums. 

Back to this again, he thinks, but then Colin surprises him.

“You’re not married, are you?”

As a defense attorney, Zackary should be able to see whatever questions any given prosecutor throws at him coming. Hell, as someone who grew up next door to Colin, who’s known him since they were in diapers, he should be able to anticipate whatever questions Colin throws at him.

But this one. This one catches him off-guard.

Possibly because it’s something so easily googleable (like how Zackary knows that Colin is  _ not _ married).

“No, I’m not,” Zackary says.

“I guess weddings you have at age six aren’t quite binding.”

“Not when the officiant is a stuffed penguin.”

Colin smiles, and god, Zackary’s missed his smile. “I thought Mr. Beaker did a fine job.”

“He did, but as it turns out, he wasn’t ordained.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Colin says.

“He  _ did _ seem very official, didn’t he?”

“He did. Though I have to admit, I definitely neglected to tell any boyfriends that I might have been married before.”

It is impossible – at least for someone like Zackary – not to catch the tension in his voice. The suggestion. Yes, they once pretended to get married, but that could well have only been because girls were icky at that age. And, to be fair, it’s not as if Zackary  _ isn’t _ interested in women. 

That was its own bundle of issues to work through. Still is, sometimes.

He could hedge around the issue, prolong the joke. 

But he doesn’t. “I’m bisexual.” Like his marital status, this is really very public information. It’s not on the firm’s website, but it’s easy to find other places, if you know where to look. Which Zackary is sure Colin does.

Colin, though, relaxes visibly. “I always kind of thought… I mean, I wasn’t sure…”

Zackary nods. “Definitely bisexual. Trust me.”

“I’m gay,” Colin says.

“I wondered,” Zackary says. And he doesn’t mean just now. He’s wondered for a while.

Especially with how Colin acted right before he and his parents moved away… but that was years ago. Decades.

“Well, there you have it.”

And the thing is, Colin is gorgeous. He’s always been gorgeous.

It was difficult, at first, in the courtroom, to reconcile the gorgeous man in front of him with the boy he’d grown up with, but now… he can see it. In his mannerisms. In the way he holds himself. In the way he’ll go for the jugular in the courtroom but refuses to answer a direct question about his own personal life.

It’d be a reasonable assumption that the last is a result of being both gay  _ and  _ ambitious, but Zackary knows for a fact that Colin has always been like that.

He’d argue with teachers about homework, but the second anyone asked him anything more personal than his favorite color, he’d spin it around.

Zackary used to be exempt from that.

He knows it shouldn’t hurt that he’s  _ not, _ anymore. It’s been two decades since he’s last seen Colin, at least properly. He’s pretty sure they toured Georgetown at the same time, but neither of them said anything, and neither of them ended up attending.

“Did you ever think about me?” Colin asks, throwing Zackary off-guard for the second time that day.

Zackary takes a sip of his tea (it hasn’t gotten any better) before responding. “Of course I did. You were my best friend.”

“Were?”

“We haven’t seen each other in two decades.” They called each other, for a while. Even wrote (well, emailed). And, for two years, they sent each other birthday presents in the mail.

There was an exciting two weeks in high school when they’d found each other on AIM, but they’d both been so busy with various school and extracurricular things that they fell out of touch, and Zackary, for one, had felt like once he’d realized how long it’d been since he’d spoken to Colin, that the appropriate window for a response had closed.

And since then… nothing. 

Colin knows this as well as Zackary does.

“I live here now,” Colin says. “You’ll find out anyway, if you haven’t yet. My grandmother isn’t doing well, and – my parents can’t afford to move back. So I was able to get a job here, and visit her when I can. Sophie, too.”

“I knew Sophie was back in town,” Zackary says, “but she didn’t say about your grandmother. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. Sophie – she doesn’t work the hours we do, so visits more than I do, but… I didn’t like L.A. that much, anyway.”

Of course he’s saying that. 

“No, really. I didn’t like L.A. Everything’s so spread out, and it takes forever to get anywhere, and the entire culture is completely different. I’m here for the foreseeable future.”

“Living with Sophie?”

Colin nods. “She already had a guest room in case our parents decided to visit.  _ That’s _ not permanent, but with everything going on…”

“I get it,” Zackary says. 

“What about you? Where are you living? I assume it’s not with your parents.”

“Definitely not. I have an apartment near the office. No point in moving to the suburbs if I spend most of my time at work, anyway.”

He watches Colin put two and two together. “It’s nearby, right?”

“Yeah,” Zackary agrees.

Colin finishes his coffee. “I’d love to see it.”

* * *

It’s not  _ really _ sleeping with the enemy now that the verdict has been delivered. Even if he’s pretty sure that his boss will want to kill him if she finds out.

(Even if they were on a case, it’s not like he’s stupid enough to divulge any information. Not that he and Colin do an awful lot of talking about  _ anything, _ much less  _ work.) _

There’s about twenty years of pent-up passion when Colin kisses him, and he’s sure just as much when he kisses Colin back.

They don’t even make it to the bedroom the first time.

He can’t even bring himself to mind that Colin calls him “Zack”.

In fact, he could probably get used to it.


End file.
